Monday, March 16, 2009

Stem Cells, Cannibalism, and the Wisdom of George W. Bush

Having posted an explanation for Bernie Madoff's crimes last week, I thought I'd continue in my role of devil's advocate by taking President Obama's announcement of the new government policy on embryonic stem cell research as an opportunity to reflect on the wisdom, such as it was, of the prior policy of President G.W. Bush. Just a month before 9/11 transformed his Presidency, Bush's August 2001 speech on stem cell research was billed by the White House as a watershed moment, one that would show the seemingly callow President to be a Marcus Aurelius of the 21st century, as he wrestled with a great ethical challenge of the day.

Bush began by describing his process of consultation with the great minds of science and philosophy. He then boiled down the issue to two questions:

First, are these frozen embryos human life and therefore something precious to be protected? And second, if they're going to be destroyed anyway, shouldn't they be used for a greater good, for research that has the potential to save and improve other lives?

The Philosopher-in-Chief did not expressly provide anything purporting to be an answer to either question. Instead, like a Zen master, he "unasked" the question. Because there were, in Bush's account, 60 existing stem cell lines already, he would permit stem cell research on these lines, but not on other embryos. I must confess that my first reaction to this announcement was "that's ridiculous. Why should the morally significant moment be the date when Bush gives his speech?" On further reflection, I came to see that line as potentially defensible if one accepts certain assumptions.

I'll explain what made sense about the Bush approach with a parable. Suppose that Alice is the chief of of a remote tribal society of cannibals. Tribal members eat the dead bodies--as smoked and cured "people jerky"--of their fellow tribal members as well as the dead bodies of those of their enemies they manage to kill, either for the specific purpose of eating them or those that they kill for other reasons. One day, a visitor from the developed world arrives by airplane in the domain of Alice's tribe. Regarding the visitor as a god, Alice decrees that he is to be revered rather than eaten. The visitor tells Alice and the other members of the tribe that cannibalism is unethical. The tribal members are at first dismissive of the idea but over time it gains adherents. The visitor leaves but now there is much debate among the tribe about whether to continue as cannibals or to find new food sources. They settle these things as they settle all divisive matters: Alice consults with the tribal elders and renders a judgment. She decrees that henceforth there shall be no more cannibalism---except that tribal members can eat the already-smoked-and-cured stocks of people jerky they possess.

Is that a sensible resolution of the issue? Why permit eating existing people jerky but forbid tribe members from smoking, curing and eating the bodies of people who died of natural causes or tribal enemies killed in battles that were fought for reasons having nothing to do with cannibalism? One answer might be that cannibalism causes kuru (similar to mad cow disease), but let's suppose that the tribe members don't know this. Another possibility could be that cannibalism is wrong even if it doesn't lead to additional killings, but if that were so, we would think that eating the existing human jerky is also wrong. The best that one could say in favor of Alice's compromise, I think, is that the process of creating people jerky is regarded as unethical, perhaps because it shows disrespect for the dead, but that once people jerky exists, it is in a form that is so far removed from living people that eating it no longer bears the taint of its origin.

Can we make that claim plausible? I'm not sure but it pretty much reflects a close analogy to my own practices. I only became a vegan a few years ago, at a point at which I still had in my possession some leather items. After giving the matter some thought, I uneasily decided to keep and use them, even though I don't purchase new products made from animal products. If I were accidentally to hit and kill a deer with my car, I suppose that I would have no first-order moral objection to eating its flesh and making slippers out of its hide (assuming I knew how to do that). Indeed, on utilitarian grounds, I might have good reason to call a butcher and tanner to do these things and sell the products to the omnivorous public, on the theory that doing so might make unnecessary the deliberate killing of one additional deer. Yet I have a revulsion against both courses of action, perhaps on aesthetic grounds only, although my aesthetic judgment here is clearly related to my ethical grounds for veganism.

If the reader thinks that my practices and the decision of my hypothetical Alice are at least plausible, what does that tell us about Bush's policy of 1) permitting the destruction of embryos; 2) forbidding the use of new embryos for stem cell research; but 3) permitting research on the already-extant lines of stem cells?

One answer, of course, could be that there's nothing wrong with using any embryos for stem cell research. This, I think, is where most Americans (including me) are: I think that at some point prior to birth a fetus develops capacities for sensation, pain, etc., that warrant our moral concern, but that occurs much later than at the embryonic phase.

Moreover, even if one thinks that it's wrong to kill embryos, we still have the puzzle--acknowledged by Bush in his speech--that if not experimented upon, the embryos are going to be destroyed anyway. A view that the real problem is the killing of the embryos would target their creation. (Sherry discussed the consequences of that view in a column just before Bush's speech.) To make sense of the Bush view, one must think that experimentation on human embryos is wrong--presumably because it is either wrong in itself or leads down a slippery slope to something like the Tuskegee experiment or Joseph Mengele--and that experimenting on existing human stem cell lines is different from experimenting on new fated-for-destruction embryos that could lead to new lines. One must think, in other words, that the existing stem cell lines are like the leather baseball glove I bought when I was an omnivore or the human jerky in Alice's decision.

Now I'll admit that I don't see the extant human stem cell lines as purged of the taint in quite the same way as my baseball glove, and indeed, I don't even regard my baseball glove as fully untainted. But I suppose it's possible that someone--Bush himself, say--could regard the existing stem cell lines this way. Sure, it may only be an aesthetic judgment, and the banning portion of the decision rests on the controversial assumption that experimenting on human embryos is either wrong in itself or poses the slippery slope dangers, but at least the policy wasn't completely irrational, which by the standards of the last administration, is pretty good.

25 comments:

There are 100's of scientific studies that have been done on AFA and our product StemEnhance. There are also 100's of scientific papers on Adult Stem Cell therapy. I have listed quite a few on my blog that you can read at http://www.phyl247.biz You can also find the book over at Amazon.com that Christian Drapeau wrote. It is called "The Stem Cell Theory of Renewal" Take a look if you would like to talk feel free to email or call me anytime 877-696-8581

I made the same decision you did about my leather products when I became a vegetarian ages ago. Two items for which I have not found suitable replacements are both baseball related - glove and ball. I doubt very much at this point in my life my gloves and mitt will ever need replacing absent disaster (that is, normal wear and tear will not force them to replacement), but my kids will ultimately need gloves and balls (there are rubber balls, but those are only usable in a limited fashion). Have you found any non-animal sources for either of these things?

In reply to Paul: Gloves for very young kids all tend to be made from synthetic leather because it's cheaper. According to http://tinyurl.com/ddlmara company called Heartland Products Ltd sells synthetic baseball gloves, but they appear to be out of business. The site lists a custom glove maker and states, more promisingly, that Rawlings makes synthetic leather gloves and balls, although when I went on their website, it's impossible to tell which ones are in fact synthetic. I had this very issue recently when I was buying hockey skates, mostly because lack of leather is NOT a selling point for the typical consumer. However, going to an actual skate shop it was pretty easy to figure out which skates were synthetic. Perhaps the same will be true when you're getting your getting a new glove. Or even better, perhaps by then Rawlings and other companies will realize that there's money to be made in marketing to vegans!

Interesting. I should not have been surprised, I guess. I found a similar thing happens with shoes. Synthetic materials are cheaper and often better, but "genuine leather" is a positive marketing point. If you go an buy a running or hiking shoe that has parts that look like leather, I have found often they are synthetic. Though no attempt has been made by the company to distinguish the product.

"This, I think, is where most Americans (including me) are: I think that at some point prior to birth a fetus develops capacities for sensation, pain, etc...."

And yet you think it's wrong to eat a lobster, contrary to scientific evidence about its capacity to feel pain, "just in case?"

Now there are a few more points to be made on Obama's sense of morality, compared to science:

1) He reversed his stem cell policy two days later, when he signed the omnibus spending bill. Usually it takes him significantly longer to do a complete 180.

2) Obama claimed that he was getting politics out of science, but his actual action was to give federal funding to research (rather than lifting a ban on research). By using public money, he is directly injecting politics into science.

3) Given that viable stem cell lines have been made from adult tissue, with no destruction of embryos at all -- thus allowing scientists to completely sidestep all moral implications -- what exactly is the point in destroying embryos?

4) Somewhat ironically, Obama (and Ken Salazar) are catching some political heat for upholding a Bush decision to take grey wolves off the endangered species list. The problem, according to Dem critics, is that Obama isn't politicizing the science enough.

In response to Sobek's point (hey Sobek, welcome back, we missed you!): If you google "do lobsters feel pain" you will find evidence pointing in either direction. But there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that an embryo--whether it is a human embryo, a cat embryo or a lobster embryo--feels pain or has anything remotely like sentience. If it will make you feel better, though, you can rest assured that I don't eat human (or other) embryos.

Rather than googling "do lobsters feel pain," I swapped in the word "fetuses," and found "evidence pointing in either direction" (depending, unsurprisingly, on the political bent of the particular web site). I'll just take your word for it on the lobsters.

So again, it appears that, in terms of pain, a fetus has a lot in common with a lobster. Why protect the lobster "just in case," but strike down laws preventing death by dismemberment for members of your own species? Why no "just in case" for a baby?

The foregoing is off-topic, so let me get back to stem cells. I'll stipulate for now that embryonic stem cell research could potentially lead to scientifically valuable discoveries. I'll suggest that there is at least some degree of ethical difficulty with destroying an embryo to conduct said research. On those terms, the question is whether the potential scientific value outweighs the moral diificulty -- and more specifically, whether it so outweighs it that the federal government needs to spend federal tax money, against the wishes of a substantial percentage of taxpayers.

But that Gordian knot can be and has been cut. We can get stem cells from adults. There is no moral dilemma. No need for a debate about a cost-benefit analysis. We get all of the good without any of the bad. Under such circumstances, the only reason to continue destroying embryos is to prove some political point.

Place one matted light pandora Jewelry left of the area for jewellery, and one to the right. pandora sale Place reflector light near where the camera is. Whatever you do, avoid mixing light types. pandora charms Use only non-fluorescent lights, and isolate your photo 'lab' away from natural light. pandora bracelets To have freedom with many settings that will be a must, we will have to use longer exposures. For longer exposures to pandora bracelet achieve maximum sharpness, we'll need a tripod. pandora bracelets sale Our hand shakes too much, when camera runs at exposition Buy a 'tripod' for You don't need a heavy duty tripod. pandora bangles If your setup will be on a desk, you can chose mini tripod - approx and stand tripod on the pandora necklaces desk as well, or longer tripod, approxand stand it on the floor. pandora beads Two desk lamps with soft light irrelevant if you are using photo tent -- the tent is there to soften the light and reflector light at the front. pandora earrings I keep the cube open at the front, for easier adjustments and photographs, unless jewellery is highly reflective of the image of me taking photograph. Uniform background colour is recommended. White background works great.